Bife de chorizo = quite a large steak.

So, BA pulled its socks up. Have had an amazing couple of days here thus far. Met 2 v.nice Aussie girls, Ashley and Hannah, who were sharing my room. They've since had to move but out little team has grown to include another Aussie, Alice, and two Irish girls, Clara and Eimear whose dinky little laptop am on at the moment.

Milhouse is living up to its infamous reputation, and everything is considerably cheaper than Brazil thank gawd. First night was Pacha night to celebrate Milhouse's 10th bday. We went round the corner to a bar to pregame (distressed barman took 45 mins to prepare 3 cocktails. Sigh.) and then hopped in a taxi dangerously close to the 1.30am free entry deadline. Got to Pacha and promptly headed straight in much to our joy. Got chatting to three boys, Chris, Garrrry and, er, Tall Boy. Dancing ensued til 4 am and was really rather fun despite lack of sambuca (forced to quaff tequila instead, urrrrgh) and it playing music with no words all night. Apparently this is what happens in places like Pacha apparently.

Yesterday we wandered to the Antique market in San Telmo but spent way more time lingering over the many stalls on the way there - much restraint demonstrated by yours truly, but not entirely. Bought cool little Don Quixote print thing by local artist who tried to explain how he made it (to my joy I was the Spanish translator for the day, Hannah and Ashley speaking no Spanish at all - managed among other things to buy sweet popcorn and strawberries, and tell people we weren't students, or indeed sisters). Long walk back, tired legs. Hit the bar in the evening (beverage of choice: Iguana Skin) with a band jamming until 2am. Idea was other people joined in but we refrained except for one drunk guy who peformed an eye wateringly embarassing dance which his mates filmed. Needless to say he hasn't showed his face thus far today.

Today we went to Boca - my experience of nasty scamming BA'rians balanced by super helpful types showing us where to go. We wandered slightly off beaten track in Boca and a boy shouted out to us to go back, and then another guy pulled up his car just to tell us we should be really careful and go back to the tourist area because we were wandering into a dodgy part. Boca was really pretty, stunning houses etc, plus we took an awesome pic of the 6 of us lined up in height order (Alice is a leggy amazon so we look hilarious together). Got a LOT of attention walking there and back including some rounds of applause. Fairly sure we can attribute these to Alice's legs.

We've smuggled in some contraband vodka- 17 PESOS for a giant bottle = happy me, so will go to rejoin the others now.

Have put some pics up on f'book - siblings if you could show M&D that would be fab.

Little one - 1, bird poo scammers - 0

Geez Buenos Aires is MEAN so far. Arrived at the airport, shared a taxi with two nice girls to their hostel and then on to mine. During the ride they ask me how I've found South America thus far, eg Rio. I say all OK etc, they then tell me that 5 different people have told them about getting all their stuff nicked through the bird poo scam. Essentially someone sprays what looks like bird poo on to you, some nice lady offers to help you wipe it off, a crowd gathers of friendly people, you put down your front backpack containing all of your valuable possessions...and someone nicks it leaving you with just your big back of smelly clothing. Nasty I think to myself... Plan to go on to my own hostel in taxi goes awry after taxi driver tries to fob us off with most fake looking money in the world. Don`t fancy my chances with him so wend way to tube station nearby (enjoyably free ride after man lets me through with my bag) and get out at Avendida de Mayo. Then wander in giant circle (including right past hostel, BIG minus points to Milhouse for having world's tiniest sign) before being forced to sit down on bench opposite McD's and get out my map, my own personal cardinal sin. Suddenly: SPLAT. I look down and seem to be covered in bird poo. But it's bird poo that smells distinctly of ketchup and what I believe was anchovy to make it suitably greyish brown (no Daddy I didn't lick it, I leave that sort of thing to you), and simultaneously a lady sits down next to me on bench. Needless to say I scarper, most relieved that I was alerted beforehand, and wiping brown streaks from my face. Nice.
Anyway, found place, had shower, washed clothes. All better. But not the greatest start to BA.

Argentinian side of the falls was absolutely amazing yesterday - sun was shining and wandered around for hours admiring the falls from every angle. Rainbows everywhere, and some pretty good photos. PLUS I had Oli the laconic Frenchman for company, having met him on a bus over the border into Argentina. This was v.bon all round: he is easy on the eye, has an excellent grasp of English right down to the concept of banter (he very proudly used the word 'chuffed' yesterday among others) courtesy of living for 4 years in Australia, and was much taller than me so managed to take some really quite good pictures of me with all the water in various guises. Sadly I could not return the favour due to stumpiness of height so he has some rather mediocre shots in return. Oops.

Yesterday was also the day of the empanada: 1 for me, 3 for Oli whilst waiting for the bus to the Falls, then 1 for me whilst waiting for coach to BA, then 1 again for me as part of 1st course on coach - the food was amazing, there was wine, and best of all, the steward-guy produced plastic champagne flutes and seemingly endless quantity of booze (smiley face, '¿mas?' repeated on pleasingly frequent basis).

So yes, best part of Argentina so far has been the coach ride. Not a vintage start, BA had better pull its socks up..............


PS. I realise most of that post was about food and a bus ride but it really was of great excitement. Nearly as great excitement as the hairdryer in Hostel Bambu in Foz de Iguaçu.

PS. For the nitpickers (mainly Daddy)

I apologise by the way for bad grammar, poor spelling and missed words. My usual (attempt at) high standards are slipping in name of spending as little time as possible on computer and as much time in sunshine. I´m sure you´ll understand.
Also no opportunity to upload pictures as yet because the last few hostels I´ve been in have removed the USB ports required to do that. MEAN. Have spare memory card thankfully so will switch when necessary.

Places beginning with ´i´, by way of Sao Paulo

Am going to work from Monday forwards, despite fact am now in Foz de Iguaçu...
2 1/2 hr bus + ferry from Angra dos Reis = Ilha Grande, pronounced according to our taxi driver as Ilha Grench. Reminiscent of a Will Ferrell film.
The weather was annoyingly rubbish for my 48 hours on Ilha Grande, with no sign of clearing up which made me happier to be moving on. The island was still beautiful, but my photos of Lopes Mendes (1 of Brazil´s top five most beautiful beaches, apparently) bear no similarity to the stunning shots pinned up around the hostel.
The island was more than a bit of a relief after the pace of Rio. No cars, and most of the roads just sandy tracks. My hostel wasn´t on a road at all, and was instead listed in my Lonely Planet/Wilf instructions as hop off the ferry and walk up the beach for a kilometre. Bumped into some British girls, Tasha and Sarah, and an Aussie, Ali. Ali and were staying in Aquario Pousada, right next to the island´s Che Legarto. Things kicked off to a great start when Ali and I were given a free upgrade to a private room. Piling our stuff all over the floor (having eyed eachother up suspiciously and decided that we trusted eachother) was a ridiculously enjoyable experience. We set out afterwards to explore the island, before returning to the hammocks and wooden decks outside the hostels. Steak for supper (my first, not vintage, bring on Argentinia) and the usual beverage of choice. Settled ourselves with the other two girls to listen to some live samba, contemplating for a while a life of being a barefoot samba singer in hostels on an island, before rejecting said on basis that voice is somewhat negligible. The island being pretty quiet in general, the hostel filled up pretty fast. Among the crowd were some suitably greasy old Argentinians who joined our party having pounced on Tasha at the bar. She arrived back clutching her drink and muttering ´this was not my fault´ as they followed in her wake. Our endeavours to shake them off by moving were not successful, so I chose the only sensible solution a group of young females should take at this point: pick the biggest boys in the bar and ask to sit with them. & thus started a beautiful friendship with Ule, Axel (sadly this is his surname and not his real name), Kamram (Persian origin, clearly offended by two weeks of being confused for a Brazilian and not a Norwegian, arguably an easy mistake to make) and....Daniel. I´ve probably spelled all of those incorrectly except for the last. Ule, Axel and Daniel were all comically Norwegian looking - giant blond blue eyed types. No complaints from the girls. Anyway, they were great fun and managed to deter said greasy Argentinians for rest of night which was much appreciated. They were leaving the next day with the rest of their football school/college thing (confusing) - we spotted them on the way back from Lopes Mendes but hid having been buffeted by wind and rain on way back, and also on realisation that they looked terrifyingly young in the cold light of day.
Following day was spent on Lopes Mendes, determinedly ignoring the lowering clouds. Sand was squeaky, sky was blue-ish, a very relaxing day all round. Plus we negotiated our way to a bargain taxi boat ride having missed the bigger boat round, so all good. Cooked pasta en masse and bought some illegal vodka which we not-so-secretly smuggled into the hostel with us. More of the same re: dancing til the early hours, only this time 2 rasta DJs were in charge, so it was less Waka Waka Shakira song, more longest version EVER of Mr Boombastic. Quite enough of that.
Yesterday (Wednesday) passed in a painless blur of ferry/coach journeys. Grabbed my first ever açai as I hopped on the ferry away from the island. Came topped with granola and bananas so made a satisfying and thirst quenching breakfast (once more shveaty having scurried down beach to have plenty of time, forgetting one of the key rules I have learnt about transport in Brazil: it never leaves on time). Distinct aftertaste of cinnamon. Not sure how I feel about it overall.
A myriad of long journeys and a delicious but embarrassingly pungent calabria baguette later (think I was asked if I was the guilty party stinking out the coach but feigned ignorance. Well, not really feigned, didn´t have a clue what he was saying) and I touched down in Foz de Iguaçu. Dumped my stuff at Hostel Bambu and headed straight for the falls. Which as predicted are a total assault on the senses. Far bigger and more imposing than I expected. Got drenched getting right up close, and continued to master the lone-traveller-self-portrait snap. Managed to get self and falls in quite a few shots, and some weren´t even wonky. Shazam.
Back in the hostel now - Argentinian side of the falls tomorrow and then overnight train to Buenos Aires. Getting increasingly excited at prospect of STEAK in large quantities.

Carioca and samba (aka Lapa revisited)

Despite temperamental phones doing their best to ruin my social life, I managed to arrange to meet Le Plongeur (as Pod and I fondly named him) in the fittingly named Shenanigans, an Irish pub in Ipanema. Managed once more to navigate my way there on my own on the bus. They have an incredibly dangerous system of paying in the more classy joints here - you´re given a ticket with your name on it when you walk in and as you order drinks they tot them up on the paper and you pay at the end of the night. Dangerous, very dangerous. I stuck to the by now uniquitous caipirinhas, of course. Was very excited by the menus all in english - no cheeseburger for ME tonight. Chicken wings instead. Obv. (Fear not Mummy am endeavouring to balance hefty consumption of junk food with nice fresh fruit - bargain of the holiday = tomato costing 0.07 reais in the supermarket). Learnt a new word - carioca, which is basically a way of calling yourself a Rio de Janeirian, but from what I understood is a play on words - you´re saying you´re Rio from the egg, from the yolk in fact.
I made a particularly big impact early on with my appalling pool playing. Once again of the laughably funny first time I wildly mishit the ball, just dull by the fifth, variety. However I was employed in the girls v. boys (they won but only just) match to sabotage the boys´game. I managed this ably by breaking so badly that they had to rebreak. Whoops. Was really awesome to hang out with a bunch of British types that I felt I technically knew via Pod, so felt relaxed enough the bring up the ´Le Plongeur´nickname before long which was greeted with hysteria and swiftly adapted to ´The Plunger´. Sorry James. The school they all teach at is a British one so packed with wealthy Brazilians - much excitement when a beloved Flamengo player called Pej appeared on screen - two of the girls, Kirsty and Neave, teach his daughters in primary school. Fernando the insanely handsome Brazilian was overcome with emotion - apparently Pej lives in his heart.... We started clapping and cheering when he came on screen, and everyone obligingly joined in. Which reminds me of a conversation I had with Le Plongeur about living in Rio and whether he missed the UK etc - he told me that 2 weeks into arriving he was sitting on Ipanema beach, cigarette and beer in hand, as the sun set. As it finally went down an almost eerie silence settled around him, and then everyone began to clap. Clapping the sun - mental picture that summed up Rio for me in a way. Not that I´ve left just yet, but my 1st experience of South America has been a lot gentler and kinder than I expected. I´ve happily hopped on buses by myself and wandered the city/beach (safe bits only obviously) without a problem at all.
Anyway - we quaffed a few more caipirinhas and then piled into two taxis en masse to head to Lapa. Drunken conversations about why Rio de Janeiro is so named ensued. Turned around me as we drove along the beach (AMAZING sand sculptures) to see the Christ lit up atop the mountain. Stunning.
We went to a brilliant samba club, picked out at random once we got to Lapa. Big old house with club on several floors, with balconies from which you could lean over and watch the samba band. The band = fantastic. They played tirelessly without stopping whilst we were there (including elderly lady on trombone). The music was unbelievably catchy (sorry for all the enthusiastic adjectives) but turns out I definitely can´t samba dance, and as there is little room for tradition Weston-Davies moves I think I prefer traditional club can´t handle us light up dancefloor stylee music. However I naturally gave it my best shot and shambled around grinning wildly with the others til we were all exhausted and rather sweaty. Staggered home v.late, everyone asleep in the taxi, to a cup of apple tea (o woe is me, alas, alack, how I miss tea-with-milk) and bed.
Today - hippie market in Ipanema. Unfortunately preceded by getting on a bus going in entirely the wrong direction (cockiness re: mastering the bus system shortlived) and taking a massive loop before ending in Central, a somewhat seedy part of the city. Figured however it was better to stay on the bus til the end of the line rather than getting off on the endless motorway that was Avenue Brazil and it turned out to be a good choice - massive relief as a bus with the welcome word Copacabana emblazoned on the front came into view. Anyway, I tried again and made it to the market - most glad I did. Could have spent my entire budget on pretty dresses and vast quantities of silver jewellery but managed to restrain myself mostly, bar some coconut rings (cheap) and some wooden parrot earrings. These plus the growing number of bracelets on my arm are aiding my transformation into bona fide Gap Yah tragedy.
From there I caught the bus over to Pao de Açucar (apparently the ç = ess, which makes the word much more similar to Sugar when pronounced) for 4.30. Spectacular views, particularly of Copa beach made it worth it, tho personally nothing beats Christo el Redentor for me. Waited as the sun went down, but as it was pretty cloudy was nothing spectacular sadly. Still, a lovely way to end my few days in Rio.
Tomorrow - Ilha Grande with Michelle and Ruaridh, the lovely Irish couple. Excited about a change of scenery and venturing deeper into Brazil.

´Your eyes are blue. My english is very bad.´

Top marks for Bruno the Argentinian´s valiant efforts to flirt despite comprehensive language barrier...
Have pulled through today´s hangover by resolutely sleeping til 11 am this morning and then heading straight for Copacabana beach. Unsurprisingly it´s absolutely rammed today - spectacular display of bikinis on show it must be said. Also love the men who do nothing except stand and pose for hours on end. Must get a bit dull. Pottered down there toute seule, armed with book, water and Bob´s burger (ah the joy of the universally understood word ´cheeseburger´) and settled down to people watch. Waves still massive so paddled around in a pathetic fashion for a while avoiding them before hurrying back to hunker down on ubiquitous Copacabana sarong.
Last night - LAPA.
Post-blog I wandered back to the bar to tuck into a caipirinha, and, as if sent by above, a wingwoman appeared - June the Norwegian who is similarly travelling alone and having the time of her life. Turns out (I was starting to get worried about his) that Che Legarto is unusually quiet this week, and not quite living up to its party hostel name (wasn´t sure if I´d just over estimated what a party hostel entails). Anyway, a few games of sh*thead later with Michael the barman and his MEAN rules, the bar was starting to fill up. A group of about 30 of us headed out to Lapa. The bus driver was completely nuts - it was literally like a rollercoaster. Apparently there is no stopping at red lights at night, ostensibly so that people don´t carjack you. As this was a bus I´m not quite sure how the rule applied. Held on for dear life and got there in one piece.
Lapa was AWESOME - streets all closed off, lots of little stalls flogging large cups of caipi-anything for 7 reais. We wandered around en masse (feel extremely smug today that I got home with wallet casually still in one piece in my pocket) through the packed streets. Music belting out of all the bars, people everywhere, very hyper Friday night vibe. A huge white bridge marks out the area, so we stuck close to that. Finished up at 3am climbing the whole way up the Lapa steps with Verena the German (plus Udo, who it turns out is not her boyfriend but a highly exasperating and almost silent friend of friend that she was NOT happy to have been dumped with) and June, plus two ever hopeful random Brazilians. Wended our way through the kissing couples, up past the weed area, to the top. Reminded me very strongly of the layout of the steps in Aldeburgh. Slightly different view. Steps themselves are stunning: designed quite recently by a local designer, the sides of each step - so you can see them as you walk up - plus the walls are covered in tiles, with a blue, a yellow and a red area. Interspersed among the plain tiles are beautiful individual one, seemingly random collection obviously from different sources. My favourites were a blue cat kicking a ball (reminded me of Sophles´mad crazy aunt cat-kicking-pearl brooch) and a stunning copy of Van Gogh´s self portrait. At the very top is an enormous Brazilian flag set into a red background that curves around the wall. Was kind of Madrid/Gaudi-esque. We sat by that til about 3.30 til wandering down and home. Last memory was seeing a chapel picked out in lights atop a hill looking over the streets.

Christo el Redentor

Sunshine sunshine sunshine. Sun is out, birds are singing, sky is blue... for the moment that is. Today was meant to be Christ Redeemer AND Sugar Loaf day (latter ideally at sunset...) but took way longer than we thought it would to get the former. Navigated our way onto the bus across the city and hopped off at the foot of the hill? mountain? housing the statue. Turned out that the taxi drivers telling us it would take 2 hours to get to the top were right - despite the queue for buying tickets being brief, waiting for the tram to take us up took way longer. We only discovered this having briefly lurked on the platform the tram pulls in at thinking that there were remarkably few people about and settling ourselves joyously in the best seats before being booted off unceremoniously. Two hours later and a nice chat with another couple (there are LOTS of couples in this hostel, all v.nice, tho´ does make me yearn slightly for someone, anyone, to buddy up with properly) we finally got on the tram. (BTW, this couple are doing reverse route to me and highly recommended a tour around San Pedro prison in Bolivia, where their tour guide was in fact a prisoner - the guards only go in there on occasion to count heads....sound like a good idea Mummy? No?)
Ascent was amazing - glimpses of the stunning view through the trees. Slightly irritating group of octogenarian Germans with extremely vocal tour guide who used elbows unashamedly to get on to the tram ahead of us. Irritation alleviated slightly at amusing choice of tshirt of lady to left of me, who had ´breathtaking´ emblazoned across her bosoms....
View from the top of the mountain is hardly done justice by the numerous pictures I took. Statue itself phenomenal - incredibly peaceful face, looking slightly eery as the clouds swept around it and then cleared again. Panoramic views make you realise just how sprawling Rio is. Picked out Copacabana and have requisite shot of self smiling awkwardly in foreground beside it. Unfortunately look windswept and shveaty/sticky (application of suncream currently admirable, not to mention diligent) in all of them. Spent about 40 mins up there taking in the beautiful views and the unique nature of Rio - the combination of city & rainforest is v.bizarre.
Made our way back down in the company of some incredibly overexcited brazilian kids (something else we really noticed: it´s a sight worth brazilians themselves seeing, not just tourists) shrieking we think about football. Slightly hairy moment when suited and booted driver swopped over trams with enthusiastic overalled man who hooted horn to joy of children almost incessantly, and then - just as we were joking about him being a novice - heaved on the clutch causing us to hop forward down the hill... Made it back across the city too late to get up to Sugar Loaf for sunset, so hope to do that, and hangliding, AND meet Pod´s friend James tomorrow. On second thoughts, Sug.Loaf may have to wait til Sunday night - my last night here before I head to Ilha Grande.
Also had my first popcorn from street vendor. With the word for sweet (´doce´, in itself obvious but not in terms of pronunciation) in my artillery negotiated my way past the dreaded toffee popcorn to savoury nirvana.
Tonight - Lapa, under the able guidance of Michael the barman.... Have redbull (or Brazilian equivalent) and copious amounts of water to hand. What could possibly go wrong....?

The mystery of the missing pants...

Not really a mystery per se, but I thought that sounded like a good title. On the back of 3 strongly mixed caipirinha´s that is... But hurrah, my luggage turned up. On closer inspection after initial cuddling of back pack it turns out that it´s full of boring things like a fleece and hiking boots, all of which are totally arbitrary. Have nonetheless celebrated said reunion by changing outfits no less than twice today. Upshot being that I now have lots of washing to do. Ah well.
So -
Spent most of Day 1 still feeling unusually shy (don´t worry, I reverted to usual over enthusiastic self fairly fast). Attempted to book favela tour for yesterday afternoon, failed, wafted around hostel endeavouring to get people to talk to me by sending out mental signals. As this didn´t work I eventually reverted to type and started to speak to a nice Irish girl and her boyfriend. As planned I managed to force them to be my friend and we ended up going out for all you can eat pizza. Generally a success once we realised that the maitre d´was staring at us with ill disguised disgust for eating with our hands.... They had sweet pizza for pudding: I went for melted chocolate with strawberries and picked off the strawbs and just ate them. Sorry Wilf.
Was feeling pretty knackered when we got back to the hotel but stuff was just picking up so I lurked about for a bit and ended up playing cards with a couple of australians and some swedish girls. Bed when it came was surprisingly comfortable.

Day 2 - kicked off with the favela tour. As amazing as people said. Arrived at the bottom of the hillside housing Rio´s largest favela, with around 200,000 occupants (not accounting for fact that people rarely have things like birth certificates in the area). For once was in a position of power - a very chirpy welsh guy on the trip (catchphrase: ´they don´t have this in Pontypridd´) turned out to be terrified of motorbikes so reassured him. My bike man turned up - ´Reeeelax, jus´hold on to me´etc and we headed up to the top of the favela. Turned out he was pretty competitive - they generally dice with death, regularly overtaking trucks etc into oncoming traffic and tucking in behind other cars / beeping ineffectually at the last minute, but he was pretty keen to get to the top first and we overtook most of our group on the way up. Despite thinking at one point ´if I die now, I´ll die happy, and it´s probably a better option than crashing and having hideous scabs for the rest of the holiday´ I ascended with a massive grin on my face, which probably encouraged the guy further.

Break neck trip aside we ducked into the favela itself. The guide was amazing - incredibly articulate and very honest about the way the whole thing works. He managed to avoid making it feel like an ´oh let´s go and look at the poor people, wow they´re so poor´ thing, and more an insight into the infrastructure of the favelas. The place itself wasn´t exactly beautiful, tho´ there´s something striking about the mass of structures creeping determinedly into the forest, but the sense of resourcefulness was extraordinary. Given all the stories/films it was surprisingly peaceful, a sensation no doubt exacerbated by the fact our guide knew everyone we passed. The children were suitably cute - a small boy tried to flog his toy car, demonstrating impressive negotiating skills before pointing to a comically low part of a house leaning over the path and yelling ´watch your head!´ to us. We were shown lots of enterprising parts of the favela - boys playing on tins that play in the parade, a delicious bakery, an artist´s workshop. In the latter we were shown the view from the top of the favela so went inside the house. Comically narrow staircases with no bannisters - the stuff I have nightmares about weirdly. Not helped by the water dripping on the tiles, and having to bend to waist height (yes, me) at points. Apparently there are over 100 routes down through the favela. Near the very bottom we went to a daycare centre that the trip helps fund - loads of very cute kids, though again we were reminded of the commercial element by 2 year olds yelling ´bye bye´to us. Finished up with a relatively serious discussion about the future of the favela - the government is moving in and will do a big sweep out of drug dealers, but basically in the opinion of the guide this will be a short term solution to paint a pretty picture for the 2014 world cup tourists, and the problem will come back 10 fold. Took one last look from the top of the daycare centre around the favela and then headed down. Two boys in our group were sniggering at a bridge below us, that did look somewhat like a bottom as they pointed out (v.childish, v.childish) - cue the guide: ´The bridge below is new, built by famous Brazilian architect. He design to look like lady´s bottom, like dental floss bikini you see on beach´. Powerful. Only in Brazil.
Headed back to the hostel to bore new found Irish friends plus Hugh the South African to death with my like oh my god totally humbling favela experience. Then headed to Copacabana beach, the sunshine having finally arrived, to paddle around avoiding the GIANT waves and try my first coconut water thingy. V.tasty. Sand weirdly sticky. Siesta this pm (getting into the swing of this holiday shiz now) then supper.
Back in hostel now, so should probably stop being so antisocial and go and sup more caipirinhas.

x x x

Inauspicious start...

It´s probably karma that my luggage didn´t make it to Rio with me. Retribution for blindly following ebooker.com´s advice regarding cheapest flights and hopping around Amsterdam and Paris yesterday, ramping up an impressive and unnecessary footprint. Whatever the reason, I´m here, but my luggage is not. However, as I have made it through arguably the most daunting part (arriving in the airport at 5am, hoping to see nice friendly taxi man but dreading thought of him not being there and having to forage for a taxi myself) I´m feeling remarkably unconcerned. This will no longer be the case if my stuff hasn´t turned up by tomorrow evening, obviously. Apart from anything else I only have one spare pair of knickers in my day rucksack.

So, brief first impressions of Rio gleaned from trip to hostel: a city essentially carved out of a rainforest. The fact that it is so muggy and cloudy adds to the effect - the bits of mountain popping out of the city look weirdly prehistoric with the mist lying around them. The shacks on the outer part of the city were eye opening - start of a quality of life that I will become used to seeing over the next few weeks.

Anyway, as I have been here all of five minutes will stop there - once I´ve actually embarked on any activities will hopefully have something of worth to add....! Breakfast is about to start so I need to go and harass unsuspecting travellers and force them to be my friend.

Rapidly impending departure

Um, hello. Feels a bit weird writing to an as yet undetermined audience (currently have the desire to go all 19th century author - 'Reader - I married him!' etc which am having to stifle) but hopefully one or two friends will read this. Or at the least Mummy will. Hi Mummy!

I looked for inspiration on how to get going with this in Mark Brinkley's blog - the hilariously named markstriponline. You see, it says Mark's trip, but if you read it really fast it sounds like Mark strip. Genius. Anyway, other than being depressed by a. the authenticity of his travels and b. the quality of his writing, he gave me the clever old idea of actually laying out where I'm going (roughly) in the intro.

So: Part 1. 6 weeks in South America, split roughly equally between Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. This is the unashamedly Gap Yah element of my travels. I intend to find the meaning of life whilst perched on top of Machu Picchu with an alpaca for company, watching the rising sun and marvelling in my own insignificance. Etc. Given that I'm trotting off alone, the added bonus of traipsing around South America on a well trodden path will (hopefully) be that I meet a varied and eclectic mix of people. That's the idea anyway. Eclectic more likely to be Tarquin from Stowe and Araminta from Marlborough.

In a bit more detail, I hope to take in the following:

Brazil - Rio: that big statue innit, the favelas, bit of hangliding, plenty of beach time, Ilha Grande etc. I will then wend my way down to the Iguazu falls cross over from there into Argentina

Argentina - Buenos Aires: as many of the bars and clubs kindly recommended by Jeremy Agnew as I can fit in, Recoleto graveyard, boat trip, and ideally some polo

Bolivia - salt flats in Uyuni, Lake Titicaca, La Paz

Peru - most of my time will be spent in Cusco acclimatising to the altitude, before taking on a 5 day trek up to Machu Picchu. It's less well trodden than the classic Inca trail but includes hot springs and stunning scenery. Please take a look at Jenny Aylwin's photo album entitled '5 days of pain' for further details.... (NB. she was wearing jesus sandals if you look closely. Not just a sartorial crime, also impractical for mountain treks it seems.) I hope to be sitting up at the top admiring the view on Christmas day, before wending my way back down to Cusco and then on to fly out of Lima back home.